Tuesday, January 08, 2013

More benefits to global warming and inconvenient truths for climate alarmists:

A paper published today in the Journal of Climate finds that global warming weakens tropical Atlantic cyclones and also tends to steer them away from landfall, harmlessly into the open ocean. According to the authors, "As the climate warms, the models project a weakening of the subtropical easterlies [wind patterns that form tropical cyclones] as well as an eastward shift in genesis location. This results in a statistically significant decrease in straight-moving (westward) storm tracks of 5.5% and an increase in recurving (open ocean) tracks of 5.5%. These track changes decrease tropical cyclone counts over the Southern Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean by 1-1.5 per decade and increase tropical cyclone counts over the central Atlantic by 1-1.5 per decade."

“North America could become self-sufficient in liquid fuels in roughly 12 years,” Mr. Gerard said, citing figures from the International Energy Agency. “And as a potential energy exporter, we can help bring greater stability to the geopolitics of energy, to say nothing of the positive impacts increased U.S. supply would have for U.S. businesses, workers and consumers.”...Mr. Gerard bristled at a suggestion that major oil companies benefit from billions of dollars in tax subsidies, saying that the Obama administration’s assertion that the industry enjoys $4 billion in unnecessary tax breaks is a “myth.”

“The oil and gas industry gets no subsidies, zero, nothing,” he said. “We get cost-recovery benefits, much like other industries. You can go down the road of allowing economic activity, generating hundreds of billions to the government, or you can take the alternative route by trying to extract new revenue from industry by increasing their cost to do business.”

He added, “We not only pay our fair share, we pay more than our fair share.”

It should go without saying that the main driver behind these rising temperatures is man-made climate change, as Angela Anderson of the Union for Concerned Scientists said:

Unfortunately, this won’t be the last time we break records like this. The longer we delay reducing emissions, the more climate change we’re going to lock in. The president has promised to make climate change a priority in his second term, but he needs to turn those words into action. The price tag for dealing with unchecked climate change makes the fiscal cliff look like a crack in the sidewalk.